Description

Despite his success, Lawrence's intensifying anxieties and self-doubt led to his voluntary confinement to a psychiatric facility in 1949. Nevertheless, he produced 11 paintings including Creative Therapy, executed on paper with casein, a liquid medium in which the pigment binder is made from acidified skim milk. Experimenting with Cubist-derived ideas, he developed flat, shallow planes of space punctured by the precipitously tipped table in the foreground, shifting the point of view. As Lawrence struggled with finding a new direction for his own work, he presented a variety of modernist styles in the patients' paintings and even transformed their palettes into gaily colored abstract designs. The artist included himself in the scene, but he hides behind his picture, which is also not visible.